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KJV: "For we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake."

I understood the Greek as:"Not [about] ourselves are we preaching, but Jesus Christ the Lord; and ourselves [we are] your servants for the sake of Jesus."

I added the bracketed words when making sense of the Greek in my head. I am not concerned about clumsy or artistic translation, but trying to understand the Greek. Do the words in brackets show a misunderstanding of the Greek?

Yes, you've got the meaning okay. The second part might be technically (in form) a type of indirect discourse: "but as to ourselves, we preach only that we are your servants on account of Jesus, we preach ourselves (only) as servants..." But even this does not really change the BASIC meaning, which you clearly grasp.

thank you. i was thinking that κηρύσσομεν and [we are] may both be implied in the last clause, but did not know a good way to translate it into English--and felt the simpler understanding, with only [we are] implied would, give the 'general' meaning. are there any 'clues' to identify this as 'indirect discourse', or is it likely or common for κηρύσσομεν [the verb in the first clause] to be implied in constructions like this? (i had a glance at Goodwin's Grammar on Indirect Discourse, and almost all of it concerns forms that I have not encountered)

i have seen few greek sentences at this point, and appreciate the assistance with building a foundation. i need my language-house built on stone.

akhnaten wrote:are there any 'clues' to identify this as 'indirect discourse', or is it likely or common for κηρύσσομεν [the verb in the first clause] to be implied in constructions like this?

With ἑαυτοὺς δὲ δούλους you've got two accusatives, which you often have in indirect discourse. οἶδά σε δοῦλον εἶναι. "I know you to be a slave, I know that you are a slave." On the other hand, you certainly could just take ἑαυτοὺς as the object of κηρύσσομεν with δούλους then being in apposition to ἑαυτοὺς. Either way the meaning comes out the same.